Force of Nature
by Gumdrop Boo - Ch4rms
Summary: I could have left that day, but this is why I went after her.


Astrid Hofferson.

_Why would she DO that?"_

Her and I ever being together, it was mostly a daydream and I knew it.

And the dream began to break as soon as the butt of her axe came crashing into my stomach.

It seemed all she could respond with was violence, and it was just sad.  
Sad and painful.  
Mostly painful.

It felt like she had broken my hand. I thought I heard something crack.

Why did I even like her? Her boot landed into my ribs as she stepped over me.

I felt a bruise form on my arm as I held it against my chest, my thoughts half jumbled and torn between the need to nurse my newly acquired injuries and the inner-screaming need to keep that girl from finding a Night Fury or worse—him from finding her. And if she kept on hurting me, the chances of a meeting grew.

What would I have said if she found him?

_...'Surprise!'_

Then, in my own impossible world we would laugh about it over some honey cakes and tea and fish for Toothless.

Why did I like her?

She was pretty, I was attracted, but I'm far from being shallow. I mean, give me some credit I befriended a dragon so I know looks don't matter. Heck look at me, all twig and freckles. No, there must have been other reasons I found myself taken with her before.

She advanced cautiously, her senses tuned to the nature of the secret cove. Listening for anything out of the ordinary but taking it in—maybe even appreciating it while her suspicious guard was up.

Looking at her, I remembered her grace and agility for being so rough was awe-inspiring, she had this knack for silently taking one by surprise and had even used it on me not even five minutes before.

She was a hard worker too, she retrieved almost three times as much buckets of water during raids than the others, I know because once or twice I caught myself keeping track from the blacksmith stall.

She was good at what she did—skilled—driven. I admired her in the fact she was just as sizable and thin as me but she made something of herself. She wouldn't let the others talk her down, she handed them their rears in training. What did I do? I failed until I tricked everyone.

I could tell she was annoyed. Astrid really isn't all bad in a neutral mood, but I could see that her patience was wearing thin with me day after day that I made her seem less apt. That was never my intention though, I hoped that she would come to like me as the others did, maybe even admire me as I had done to her. If I could have been the reason for one of Astrid Hofferson's smiles, I think I might die and go straight to Valhalla because pleasing her was a battle of it's own.

Though that wasn't my intention either in training, just a hopeful perk of my newfound advantages in the ring.

My intentions were to apply what I had discovered hanging around Toothless to the other dragons to see if they had sort of a..._common denominator_.

But all my musings had to evaporate as soon as she spotted a moving shadow.  
Before I could think, Toothless was charging, Astrid threw me down and readied her weapon and I found myself just as quickly back on my feet and yanking it away. Now, normally I would not be able to do such a thing but my will to keep Toothless safe and Astrid from being fried overpowered my fishbone limbs and I threw her axe to the side, scrambling for something to say, trying to calm my friends down. Why couldn't we all just get along?

Of all things to possibly say, I began with introductions and neither party could have been more thrilled.

The look she gave me, of disgust, of betrayal—it nearly knocked me back and all I could do to save face is retort with a dry witticism; it's always been my defense mechanism. She didn't even hear me because she was already climbing the rocks out of the cove.

Toothless seemed just as disgusted with her and turned his back on me. Well, she did come after him with an axe, I can't blame him. But I can't blame her either—it was how we were raised. Can one really change their nature?  
We could fly away right now, my dragon—friends and me—and never return. That is what I wanted to do but my plans had gone astray because we were never supposed to be found; just vanish like whispers in the wind and no one would ever know why or what happened to me. Maybe they'd even miss me.

But if we left now Astrid would denounce me to my clan, my father would feel the greatest fury and heartbreak known to man at hearing of his already useless son abandoning duty and family all for an offspring of lightning and death.

It's not that I hated them all and wanted to leave them, I love my dad the way he loves me but I think they all would have been better off without me and I had disappointed him enough already.

Screwing up raids, injuring myself, destroying everything from a brazier to a house—I really was useless to them. I didn't want to kill a dragon, I didn't want any of that and Hel be damned herself if I could get my father to understand my point of view. Have you ever tried making a deal with that guy?

Impossible.  
It would have been an already lost battle trying to change their viking nature. So I decided to slip away unnoticed.

I looked to Toothless who was lapping at the water.  
_Heh, the nature of us._ I had to laugh thinking about it.

Toothless was supposed kill me or rather I was supposed to kill Toothless.  
That was supposed to be **our** Nature.

Which proved that nature sometimes _could_ be altered.  
That was it, why not leave?

_Because nature can be altered._  
Maybe _I_ was giving up too easily.

It didn't take much to convince Toothless to snatch Astrid up from the ground and plop her on the high branches of a giant pine. In fact, I think he enjoyed it evident by his triumphant grin at the long screams that tore through the wind.

"You have to let me explain," I urged, not willing to give up on my notion.

She told me off. She had always been a stubborn girl. But I wasn't deterred because I had years of patience, having to have it, living how I did with the _man_ I did was an asset on how I dealt with people.

Still, she clearly was not interested in anything I could say to her. But you could tell...you could tell she wanted to know deep down the way she wouldn't make eye-contact. Or maybe I was reading too much hope into it. Girls were never my forte, mainly because I knew someday my father would pick one out for me so I never bothered learning their idiosyncrasies.

She still wouldn't look at me, as if it would contradict her nature if she did, her instinct to stay away, her duty to loathe me for the secret I had kept. But most of all her struggle with jealousy, because it was _me_—that weirdo clumsy kid on top of the most bad-ass dragon known to the world, I had befriended him and now she was at _my_ mercy.

She was hanging hundreds of feet in the air and she had no choice but to do my bidding. It felt kind of nice, knowing I had that rare power over her.

But even after all her little stings aimed at me I wasn't looking to be vindictive. I guess...I just really wanted her to understand, I yearned for someone to because no other human in Midgard seemed to, not even Gobber.

"Then I won't speak—just let me show you."

She knew she was trapped as she looked away with a helpless frown, but also she knew it was the only way to escape her predicament.

"Please Astrid."

Astrid was stubborn, but sensible.

As soon as I felt her climb behind me, my heart took to a nervous frenzy at knowing I could at least share, rather reluctantly what I had found and maybe alter her nature as Toothless and I had done to each other.

That was why I went after her, to show someone I wasn't a total screw up, that dragons were not evil, that I could hold my own and who better to prove it to than a girl I had been enamored of since I was nine years old, a girl that was considered an ideal Viking—thee Astrid Hofferson.

Maybe I wouldn't be such a failure if I could get one—just _one_ person to feel what it was like being on the back of wind, near enough to touch clouds and drink in the sunbeams—to see the world in a different light instead of black and white. Oh, she would see, and in the end I really hoped, no—_wanted_ her to be able to understand.

* * *

**A/N: **don't do first person that often but here's a sample. Digging down to why he could have gone after her when he was supposed to leave.


End file.
